1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates to a card ejector for a card connector apparatus, and particularly to a card ejector for a card connector apparatus which ejects an inserted card by a first reduced force step and a second time efficient step.
2. The Prior Art
A card connector apparatus provided in a portable (laptop) computer is generally equipped with a card ejector for ejecting an inserted IC card (also called memory card). There are a variety of designs concerning card ejectors, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,051,101, 5,139,435 and Taiwan Patent Application Nos. 82101136 and 82102557. These designs share a common disadvantage, namely a large force must be exerted on a push button of the ejector to eject the inserted IC card from its connection with contacts of the connector apparatus.
To overcome the disadvantage, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,383,789 and 5,421,737 disclose card ejectors which can reduce the required force to eject the card from its connection with the contacts. However, due to structural limitations of each ejector, an ejection force is exerted at only a single point of an inserted card thereby causing the card to be inclined relative to guiding frames of the ejector during ejection. Therefore, the card cannot be smoothly ejected, or may even be obstructed by the guiding frames and cannot be successfully ejected from the connector apparatus.
Hence, an improved card ejector for a card connector apparatus is needed to eliminate the above mentioned defects of current card ejectors.